Wagner Moura stars in radical Ibsen trial at Edinburgh Lyceum
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- Wagner Moura stars in "A Trial: After An Enemy of the People," a dramatised adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play running at the Lyceum theatre, Edinburgh until 10 August, in which his Stockmann faces a tribunal over his decision to blow the whistle on the town's water supply.
- Christiane Jatahy conceived and co-wrote the production with Moura and Lucas Paraizo, relocating Ibsen to contemporary Brazil where a spa town's tourism economy depends on the very water Stockmann insists is poisoning residents.
- The staging dismantles the fourth wall: Moura/Stockmann breaks character to address the audience directly, and a 12-strong jury drawn from audience members sits on stage for most of the play before deliberating his verdict.
- Moura plays a fissured dual role as both Thomas and an observing commentator of Thomas — described by the reviewer as "an immensely charismatic force" — with daughter Petra (Julia Bernat) and adversarial brother Peter (Danilo Grangheia) appearing on stage opposite him.
- The production links Ibsen's 1882 scandal to present-day concerns, with the reviewer citing parallels to the recent docudrama Dirty Business and ongoing US "forever chemicals" investigations.
- The reviewer credits Jatahy with an established record of reinventing classics — having previously adapted Chekhov and Strindberg and brought her Dogville-derived piece Dusk to the Edinburgh international festival three years ago.
- The reviewer's chief critique: the moral debate lacks sufficient force because whether Thomas was right to expose the truth reads as a foregone conclusion, with tourism concerns framed as inadequate against mass water poisoning.
Why it matters: Edinburgh festivalgoers have until 10 August to catch a staging that physically seats 12 audience members on the Lyceum stage as jurors in Ibsen's century-old whistleblower drama. By relocating the contaminated-water scandal to contemporary Brazil and explicitly echoing US "forever chemicals" coverage, Jatahy extends a track record of reframing European classics — her *Dusk*, an adaptation of Lars von Trier's *Dogville*, played the same festival three years ago.
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